Prosecutor to jury: Don't let lawyer get away with murder

Paul Bergrin, seen here in this 2008 file photo, was once a high-profile criminal defense attorney. He now stands charged with racketeering conspiracy and murder.Star-Ledger file photo

NEWARK — In direct and at times stern tones, Prosecutor Joseph Minish laid out a robust 3 ½-hour closing argument today at the racketeering conspiracy and murder trial of Paul Bergrin, painting the once prominent lawyer as a greedy man who used his Newark law office as a center point for both plotting to kill witnesses against clients and trafficking in kilogram-quantities of cocaine.

“Justice is not letting a man off of these acts,” Minish said to a rapt jury in federal court in Newark early this afternoon, as he came to the end of his side’s closing argument. “Give Paul Bergrin justice. Find him guilty.”

Bergrin, who is representing himself at trial – and who will deliver his own closing argument this afternoon – watched with a slight grimace at times as Minish detailed some seven different plots and crimes that Bergrin allegedly led from 2001 to 2009.

Most dramatically, Minish put up large images of transcripts on a courtroom screen for the jury that set out Bergrin’s own words, as taped secretly in 2008 by an undercover informant.

N.J. NEWS ON THE GO

Our redesigned mobile site has quick page loads and app-style navigation, and lets you join the conversation with comments and social media.

Visit NJ.com from any mobile browser.

He argued that Bergrin’s words were damning and could not be escaped no matter how Bergrin tried to “spin” them in his own arguments and protestations.

On one tape that allegedly relates to Bergrin working with a gang member who was posing as a hit man while secretly recording Bergrin, the then-defense lawyer says on the transcript:

“It’s gonna help it. They’ll never figure out.”

Those words, Minish argued, were Bergrin assuring the supposed hit man that killing a key witness in a drug case would help the defendant get off.

Tried in 2011 on just two of the 26 counts he’s now facing, Bergrin came away with a hung jury in that murder-focused trial.

CONNECT
WITH US

On mobile or desktop:

And check out our redesigned mobile site by visiting NJ.com from any mobile browser.

This time, Bergrin, 57, is battling a more extensive prosecution that says he ran a racketeering enterprise from his Newark law office marked by conspiracy to murder witnesses, cocaine trafficking, promoting prostitution, witness tampering, attempted murder and murder of the FBI informant he was tried on before.

He faces life in prison if convicted of some of the charges against him.